In an effort to "prove a negative" a great deal of research
is required into source documentsthat have been little used, if at all, by previous historians
who have written on the subject over the years until some of the misinterpreted
and inaccurate descriptions of people and events themselves have become
a part of American folklore. That is exactly what has happened withmany of the described events attributed
to the building of our nations first transcontinental railroad. Railroad
histories are full of legends and made up stories by authors who have not
done the research required and have embellished their descriptions in order
to make their stories exciting and popular. In my quest to write the biography
of James Harvey Strobridge, Superintendent of Construction on the Central
Pacific Railroad I found his reputation to be much maligned. Many of the
events he was responsible for have been so exaggerated and embellishedthat they no longer represented the truth
of history. Such is the case of the legend of building the railroad around
Cape Horn, three railroad miles east of Colfax, Calif.. The story that
follows represents my interpretation of what really happened, or didn't
happen, as the case might be.

My research could never have been completed without
the help of a few truly dedicated railroad historians that have dedicated
years of their lives to their great love of history and it is to them I
dedicate this effort "to prove a negative."

First,
to my wife June Strobridge who
never intended nor wanted to be a railroad historian but was always there
for me and provided the encouragement to take on the challenge and see
it through.

Chris
Graves, Newcastle, CA for his
help and expertise in local period research in source documents

Wendell
Huffman, Carson City, NV, a
research Librarian, author and expert in western history for all his
help and advice..

Charles
Mutschler, Professor of History,
Eastern Washington State University, for his help with basic research.

Most
of all, to my dear friend and mentor, Lynn D. Farrar, of Bothell, WA., who spent a lifetime with the Southern
Pacific Railroad and research on the history of the of the Central Pacific
Railroad. Lynn provided copies of many source documents, council on interpretations,
criticism if deserved, praise if it was earned and was hell on spelling.
Lynn once wrote me a letter scolding me for leaving the "h" off of Pittsburg(h).
The only thing he asked of me was that I report the truth of history and
spell correctly which I have tried to do. He is without a doubt an historians
historian.

Last
but not the least, to all the Inter-Library Loan Librarians all over the
country who graciously made available rare and hard to find books and reference
sources.
God love 'em!.

Forward

Since the completion of the construction
of the great Pacific Railway in 1869 the romance of its history and
the beauty ofthe country it has traversed has been
reported in newspapers, journals, travelogues and travel guides the world
over. Both the Central Pacific and Union Pacific railroads promoted the
Travel Guides that began to proliferate
as early as 1867. Journalists were encouraged by the use of free
travel passes on the railroads to report
favorably on the railroads activities and the beauties and wonders of travel
over the country's first transcontinental railroad.

Among the wonders of the construction locations over
the High Sierras, Cape Horn, a
rocky prominence about fifty seven railroad miles east ofSacramento
and three miles east of Colfax, came in for more than its share of attention.
Its elevation was located a mile below the summit, well below the snow
line, and consequently well below the forty miles of wooden snow sheds
that prevented passengers from taking in the more spectacular views at
the summit.Cape Horn was used by the Central Pacific
in its public relations efforts to promote travel due to its easy access
and spectacular view across the American River Canyon with the American
River located 1,322 feet below and about a mile distant from the vista
at trackside. Passenger trains routinely stopped at Cape Horn to give thepassengers an opportunity to disembark
from the train and take in the spectacular view. And thus began the building
of the myth of how Cape Horn was constructed.

Stories written since 1927, some 62 years after the
event occurred,had begun
to expand on the earlier descriptions of how the roadbed was excavated
along the side of this steep rocky mountain.All
the earlier Travel Guides and other contemporary sources described men
with ropes tied around their bodies being let down from above until firm
footholds were excavated on a narrow ledge so that the drilling and blasting
could begin. Sheer vertical precipices, hundreds of feet above and thousands
of feet below the roadbed and the use of baskets, swaying in the wind,
used by the laborers pounding away drilling holes in the vertical cliff
was not described in any way until nearly 85 years after the event took
place. To this day one only has to visit the site and to see that the only
near vertical rock face was the one that was blasted away to make room
for the roadbed itself. The descriptions were vastly over exaggeratedas
was the height ofthe rock
cuts and the depth of the "vertical precipices" below the track. There
simply were no vertical precipices other than the ones constructed by the
Central Pacific.Eventually
the myth developed that described the excavations along Cape Horn as beingmade by "Chinese basket drillers," who
had patiently waited, hat in hand, until they gained permission from James
Harvey Strobridge, Superintendent of Construction, to weave their own baskets
so they could be let down over the cliff. The legend has become so deeply
rooted in the history of the building of the Central Pacific Railroad that
each succeeding author who has written a railroad history has deemed it
necessary to include the myth as a true description of events and then
go on to add to embellish the story. What began as a brief description
of a little more than 100 words has now become one that averages well over
400 words and has taken on a life of its own.

Inresearchingthe
biography of James Harvey Strobridge I felt it necessary to try and find
the proof ofjust how this
event occurred – were the stories fact or fancy?Strobridge's
life's descriptions on the railroad have been so exaggerated by so many
authors who have failed to do the original research required to relate
the accurate stories I felt it necessary to explore all the available sources
in my quest for the truth. I am including in this study quotations taken
from every available source that I was able to find. I have especially
included those reference sources who other authors have cited as their
source and have added comments of my own. I have reached my conclusion
of what is true and offer the results of my research to those of you who
care to review these resources anddraw
your own conclusion as to what you believe to be reasonabledescription of what really happened.

The written history of the building ofthe Pacific Railroad is filled with myths
and exaggerations that have never been accurately researched and described.
Today more resources and access to
source documents are available to students
of history and serious historians than ever before. It is my opinion that
the inaccurate stories, descriptions and exaggerations should be corrected
by historical writers who are interested in recording our nation's history
as accurately as can reasonably be done. Over the past fifty years many
of our schools and Universities have blindly accepted and taught versions
of our nation's past that are considered politically correct at the expense
ofwhat is really true.Well meaning historical groups, including
the State of California, have fallen victim to these myths in their effort
to honor our true historical past with historical
markers, memorial plaques,
signs and published local histories. The Pacific Railroad right of way
abounds with many historical plaques placed at no small expense and effort
by well meaning groups that are intended to honor or describe events that
historically never took place. The memory of the Chinese laborers who contributed
so much to the building of the Central Pacific Railroad has been exploited
by well meaning writers, and others, who have failed to accurately portray
the events of the time. Descriptions of the mountain and construction of
the railroad at "Cape Horn" on the Central Pacific Railroad is one of these
myths that have taken on a life of its own and which is the subject of
this research.

As I have searched the sources of the stories written
about the construction of "Cape Horn" I have determined what I believe
to be the beginning of the fabrication of a story that has become myth
in our own time. I have singled outthe
words and descriptions in bold type thatwere added to by succeeding authors so
the reader can see for himself when and how the Legend of Cape Horncame
to be.

The Central Pacific Railroad

and the

Legend of Cape Horn

Laborers in Baskets, Fact or Fiction ?

An interpretation
based on all the known contemporary stories, original documentation and comment
on earlier published claims by previous Authors

The
story of the construction of the Central Pacific Railroad around Cape
Horn, a
rocky prominence, located aprox three railroad miles east of Colfax, California
and 57 miles east of Sacramento, is the subject of this paper. The stories
written about this event are the basis of much legend and itis becoming more and moredifficult to separate fact from fancy
due to the many exaggerations, misinterpretations and made up stories that have
been written over the years and made a part of the history of the first transcontinental
railroad. This is an attempt tomake known all the documentation this writer could find, put it all into
perspective, so the reader can determine for himself what he believes to be the
most acceptable truth.

A
review of all the contemporary source documents available indicate that:

2. No Records mentioning Cape Horn
have been located in the archives of the Southern Pacific Co.

3. No descriptions were found in
the 1887 U.S. Senate Pacific Railway Commission Hearings

4. No mention in any of the many
contemporary newspapers, both in the West and the East that were covering,
almost daily, the construction of the Pacific Railroad.

5. No description or mention, with
one exception, in any of the testimony or later reminisces of the principals
involved. J.H. Strobridge mentioned that the winter of 1865-1866 was the
wettest on record and went on to describe the hardships encountered throughout
the area both above and below Colfax but does not mention Cape Horn at all.

The
one exception found was a statement made by the CPRR Chief Engineer, Samuel S.
Montague in his November 25, 1865Report of the Chief
Engineer, where he states;that "The work at Cape Horn has
proved less difficult and expensive than was first anticipated." Keeping
in mind that Cape Horn was an early experience with heavy rock work on side
hill cutting along the Central Pacific's line, it was also a learning experience
for everyone involved, from the Engineers, Construction Superintendent, the
Foreman and the white and Chinese laborers who actually did the work. The below
transcribed letters between Edwin B. Crocker and Collis P. Huntington
describing "sidehill rock cutting" and a first hand description by
Robert L. Harris, a trained Civil engineer of how men were suspended by ropes
certainly applies to what was learned at Cape Horn and may in fact be a
reasonable explanation of how the roadbedwas constructed there and the success of the Charles Crocker and Co.,
contractors,in rapidly completing
the work.

The
only first person descriptions of "side hill rock cutting", so far discovered
on the initial construction of the Central Pacific Railroad written by
observers at the time of construction,has been found in the Collis P. Huntington Papers, 1856-1901 and The Overland Monthly, Volume III, San
Francisco, A Roman & Company, 1869.The collection of the personal
correspondence between C.P. Huntington and his Associates has only been
available to researchers & scholars since the early 1960's. As a result
those who have speculated and written about how the Cape Horn roadbed was
constructed before that time did not have the benefit of their recorded first
hand accounts of how sidehill rock cutting was done. The 1869 Overland Monthly
however has been readily available to all however no citations have been found
that would indicate they had been researched or considered by subsequent
historians.

The
Overland Monthly story "Pacific
Railroad - Unopen", pgs. 244-252, was
written by Robert L. Harris, formerly the Chief Engineer of the California
Pacific railroad about his visit over the construction of the Central Pacific
in 1867. His narrative not only describes "side hill rock cutting" but how "men
were suspended by ropes from above" as he observed them.

Neither
of these two examples are claimed to be a description of observed activities at
Cape Horn but without a doubt are an accurate description of how the work was
done two years after the much smaller and easier Cape Horn work was prosecuted.

Extracts
of two letters written by Edwin B. Crocker to Collis P. Huntington are
transcribed below:

(1867)

Sacramento,
July 23/67

Friend
Huntington,

"Never
at any time has the work looked so well. The workman apparently working so
diligently & everything moving so orderly. That work at the Summit is
moving lively. The rock is full of seams. The men work the earth out of the
seams with long hooked iron rods & then a keg or so of powder is fixed in
them which cleans out and opens the seam, then 10 or 20 kegs are put in &
the explosion sends rock flying clear out of the way. Thisside hill
rock cutting, though it looks large, is the cheapest & quickest got out
of the way. That Summit work will all be ready before the track can be laid to
the Summit."

Yours truly,

s/E.B. Crocker

Two
and a half weeks later:

SacramentoAug. 10/67

Friend
Huntington,

I
have just returned from a short trip to the Summit tunnel. The heavy rock at
the Summit is progressing splendidly & in one month more there will be very
little left of it. I was perfectly astonished to see the amt. done since I was
there only less than three weeks ago. The thing is done up scientifically. They
work the rock up to a face, then go back 3 or 4 ft. from the face, put in a
hole 12 to 20 feet deep, fill it with powder which is only powerful enough to
"spring a seam", cracking the rock enough so that powder can be poured in. Then
they put powder in by the keg, from 1 to 50 kegs, according to its size. The
effect is to blow the greater part of the rock clear over the cliff & out
of the way. It is a sight to see these heavy seam blasts go off. It makes the
earth shake like an earthquake. But the rock rapidly disappears & and it
begins to look quite like a R.R. there.

"Here
let me give one or two incidents which occurred along and in the vicinity of
the above mile and a half (east of
the Summit) in the old times, when there was not even a path for adventurous
engineers." "The only way for the chain-men to work along these cliffs and
those of the northern sides was by being suspended by ropes from above, the
chain bearers signaling to those holding the ropes, up or down, forward or
back."

In
several places where one side of the roadbed was at grade, the other slope
would be seventy feet in cutting." "With one drilled hole, eight feet in depth,
1,440 [cu] yards of granite were thrown clear from the roadbed."

As
Cape Hornwas a soft rock,
sometimes being described as "soapstone" or a "slaty rock as commonly found on
the western slope of the Sierras the difficulty did not compare with the
granite excavations at the Summit.

The
view from the Cape Horn vista across Green Valley and down to the American
Riverwas a spectacular one and
the Central Pacific gave it a lot of publicity by stopping passenger trains
along the steep mountainside. This allowed the travelers to take in the
magnificent views and brought the location into national prominence. Even
though it was not the most spectacular view along the road, it was one of the
few not enclosed within the miles of wooden snowsheds constructedover the summit which obstructed the
view of the beauty of the Sierra crossing from the passengers. The fact that
the roadbed had been blasted from this rocky outcropping made it that much more
spectacular to think about and the CP Publicity men did their work well. Cape
Horn soon became one of the places on the Central Pacific to see and the
Tourist Guides of the day began telling their stories about the exciting and
dangerous construction along this steep bluff.

The
construction at Cape Horn did not attract any publicity from the contemporary
newspapers and so the stories told by the popular Tourist Guides became the
source for later authors. The reader should keep in mind that these Tourist
Guides were written to generate interest in our first transcontinental railroad
and the newly discovered wonders of the West. They sometimes copied each
other's descriptions and were often subsidized by the railroads in their
efforts to promote travel. They were not written as, nor intended to be,
historical records of the events of the day.

A
review of all the contemporary writings that could be located and the more
important works that followedhave
been listed as a source, a brief extract of the text with a comment by this
author as appropriate for clarification. Following are extractstaken from several of the Tourist
Guides descriptions of the construction:

"The
cars now (1867) run nearly to the
summit of the Sierras. At the time of my visit (Sept. 1865) the terminus was at Colfax, thirty
five miles* east of Sacramento.
Thence we took horses for twelve miles. Upon this little section of road four
thousand
laborers were at work — one tenth Irish, the rest Chinese. They were a great
army laying siege to nature in her strongest citadel. The rugged mountains
looked like stupendous ant-hills. They swarmed with celestials, shoveling,
wheeling, carting, drilling and blasting rocks and earth, while their dull,
mooney eyes stared out from under those immense basket-hats, like umbrellas.
At
several dining camps we saw hundreds sitting on the ground, eating soft boiled
rice with chopsticks as fast as terrestrials could with soup ladles. ... Cape Horn
is a huge mountain around whose side track winds upon a little shelf seven
hundred feet above valley and streambed." [1](*
Colfax is 54 miles east of Sacramento)

Comment: The author, Albert Richardson, a newspaper reporter
for the New York Tribune, had arrived in Sacramento in late August 1865 and
included on a tour to the end of track (at Colfax) as guests of Stanford and
Charles Crocker. Richardson includes the above description in his narrative for
his book, "Beyond
the Mississippi." It is not evident that by Richardson's
description that he even saw Cape Horn except perhaps at a distance and
certainly not from the "little shelf seven hundred feet above valley and
streambed." Itis also not evident that the Colfax
party traveled over the right of way around Cape Horn as the Long Ravine
Trestle and Bridge had not been completed at the time of this trip and there
was no room to pass the construction activities along the narrow bench around
Cape Horn. Railroad supplies, travelers and the ever increasing freight traffic
continued to use the well traveled road located between Colfax (Illinoistown)
and Dutch Flat that had been constructed in early 1864 by a Mr. Madden[2]
to accommodate the Nevada and Idaho mining traffic and passed several miles to
the north of the Mountain labeled "Cape Horn." The Chinese workman Richardson
observed were more probably working between Secret Town and Dutch Flat, eight
miles or more northeast of Colfax where the only available road joined the railroad
where the construction could accommodate the 4,000 men that he describes.

(1869)

"When
the road was in the course of construction, the groups of Chinese
laborers on
the bluffs looked almost like swarms of ants, when viewed from the (American)
river. Years ago, the cunning savage could only find a very round-about trail
by which to ascend the point, where now the genius and energy of the pale face
has laid a broad and safe road whereon the iron steed carries its living
freight swiftly and safely on their way to and from ocean to ocean.

When
the roadbed was constructed around this point, the men who broke the first
standing ground were held by ropes until firm foot-holds could be excavated in
the rocky sides of the precipitous bluffs." [3]

Comment:
The American River is one mile
distant from the view point on Cape Horn. It would not be possible to see men
amongst the rock and brush at that distance without a very strong glass, if in
fact the author had climbed down to the river in order to make his observation.
The "cunning savage" would have had no reason to have had to cross around the
face of "Cape Horn" as there was a much better route through the area, the same
route that the white man eventually built his road. As the railroad could not
exceed a 2.2 % grade they were required to take the long way around themountain and across the Cape Horn route
in order to maintain a practical grade.

"From
Summit Station, we may here observe, ... the line is carried along the edge of
declivities stretching downwards for 2,000 or 3,000 feet, and in some parts on
a narrow ledge excavated from the mountain side by men swung from the top in
baskets." [4]

Comment:
This narrative
description could have
described several places along the Central Pacific line west of the Summit
however is included here as it makes the first reference to the use of "men
swung from the top in baskets." The writer later describes "Cape Horn Mills",
makes no mention of the construction and only a very brief description of the
location ofCape Horn itself. It
is most likely that this exaggerated description is nothing more than an effort
to capture the interest of travelers. The Cape Horn roadbed is 1,332 feet above
the American River, not the 2,000 to 3,000 feet related.

(1872)

"When
the road was in the course of construction, the groups of Chinese laborers on
the bluffs looked almost like swarms of ants, when viewed from the (American) river" ... "When the roadbed was constructed
around this point, the men who broke the first standing ground were held by
ropes until firm footholds could be excavated in the rock sides of the
precipitos (sic) bluffs.[5]

Comment:Same
verbatim description as used in 1869 edition as written by Bill Dadd (see above)

(1876)

A
letter written by Caroline Amelia Trapp Chickering to her mother, dated
Oakland, Cal. Thursday, Nov. 9, 1876 after she arrived in California by train
in 1876:

"At
7:00 we were to round "Cape Horn". Miss Carmony and I were disturbed though,
and we could not sleep after three, so we rose and dressed, but when we went
out on the platform the snow-sheds shut out everything. So after while we
concluded to lie down until nearer dawn. Between six and seven we made our way
out to the last car, not withstanding the fact that we had to pass through some
Immigrant cars, and there we had a glorious view. The track is laid around this
point, Cape Horn, on the side of a mountain so precipitous that the first
workman had to be lowered from the bluff above by ropes. Away below is the
American River, called beautiful in the Guide Book ... "[6]

Comment:The
obvious source of Miss Chickering's description of the workmen came from her
"Guide Book".

(1877)

"The
first workmen on this rocky point - hardy industrious Chinese - were held steadily by the aid of rope tied
securely around their bodies.
Thus they hammered away at the rock, until they made for themselves standing
room, appearing like swarms of ants on a loaf of sugar." [7]

Comment:There
is no evidence that Chinese laborers were the first workman at Cape Horn or
that they were even used at all at this location.

(1878)

The author narrates a story as told to
him by a "General" who was a passenger with him on a train on arun up from Junction to Truckee that
(Leland) "Stanford had taken him up the line to show the 'General' what they
had done." Under the heading "The
General's sensation at Cape Horn" he
told how Stanford had shown him "the greatest spectacle that [he] ever expect[ed] to see, until they commence to put up that great tramway to the
moon. Down the face of the very worst peak to be surmounted, they had that day
commenced lowering men, with ropes around their waists and pickaxes in their
hands; and there, at the point you passed when you came over, now called Cape
Horn Ð there they hung, fivehundred feet of rock almost sheer above them, and about twenty-five hundred
feet of sharp precipice below,
picking away at that solid granite to make places into which to put their feet
to begin picking, drilling, and blasting for the road." [8]

(1884)

"Cape
Horn. — Around the Cape, the railroad clings to the precipitous bluff at a
point nearly 2000 feet above the river and far below the summit, where the first foothold for the daring workman
on the narrow ledge was gained by men who were let down by ropes from the
summit" [9]

"Early
in the spring, (1865) throwing
forward one of those high curving trestles (in this case 1100 feet long) with
which the road strode across the deep gorges and ravines, the rails moved out
of Colfax for the attack upon the gigantic Cape Horn. Here a bed had been
literally chiseled from the granite slope so sheer that the laborers, yellow and white, were suspended
by ropes while they hacked, drilled and blasted, 2500 feet above the rushing
American River."[10]

Comment:This
description is taken from Edward Sabin's "Building The Pacific Railway," written to commemorate the 50th anniversary
of the completion of the Pacific Railroad.Unlike the Tourist
Guides cited above,this work was
the first modern history written and the foundation from which later writers
would build more extensive and complete histories of the Pacific Railroad.
Sabin was in error in the above description as the Long Ravine Trestle was 878
feet long, not the 1,100 feet which was the actual length of the Secret Town
trestleconstructed much later.[11]
The Cape Horn roadbed is 1,332 feet above the American River, not 2,500 feet.
The
mountain is not granite but a much softer rock better described as slaty.[12]
Sabin, who hadonce been an
employee of the Central Pacific Railroad, was able to include some information
developed from correspondence with the last living construction official on the
Central Pacific Railroad,James
H.
Strobridge.

(1927)

"Cape
Horn, into the steep side of which the grade was carved had proved less
difficult and expensive than anticipated. Here the line was thrown into
the hill sufficiently to form the roadbed in solid cutting" . . . "It
was at Cape Horn that workers were lowered over the cliff in 'bosun's
chairs'and did the preliminary cutting, suspended 2500 feet
above the American River."
[13]

Comment:This
is the first reference to the use of "bosun's chairs" in an aid
to letting the workman down from the top at Cape Horn. It was written by
Erle Heath, Southern Pacific Public Relations Dept, and published in the
May 1927 issue of"Southern Pacific Bulletin".

A
bosun's chair is defined as "a wooden plank or canvas chair for a
worker hung by ropes over the side of a ship, building, bridge, etc."Mr.
Heath does not describe his source for his use of the term "bosuns chairs"however it is not unreasonable to assume
that the rope tied around the men was in fact a sling that was used to suspend
the workman and may have had a board or canvas seat, hence the description "bosun's
chair.The "preliminary
cutting" confirms the work
done to construct a bench or ledge from which the workmen continued to work
at drilling and blasting the rock from the face of Cape Horn, either with
or without being tied with safety ropes.

(1938)

"Cape
Horn, a sheer granite buttress, proved the most formidable obstacle of the
year; its lower sides dropped away in a thousand-foot vertical cliff that offered
no vestige of a foothold. The indomitable Chinese were lowered from above by
ropes, and there, suspended between sky and earth, chipped away with hammer and chisel to form the
first precarious ledge, which was then deepened to a shelf wide enough to
permit the passage of cars. Three years later, when overland trains crept
cautiously along this ledge, passengers gazed straight down from their
windows into thin air. Cape
Horn was successfully passed in May 1866." [14]

Comment:This
description is taken from Oscar Lewis's "The Big Four". It is obvious Mr. Lewis never saw Cape Horn and
draws from earlier descriptions previously cited above. He then goes on to
embellish his description as if to imply the laborers were hanging on the end
of a rope above a thousand-foot vertical cliff chipping away with a hammer and
chisel and makes the event exciting and dramatic for his readers.His description of "passengers gazing
straight down into thin air" istotally made up in an effort to make his story more exciting. It simply
is not true, then or now.(Note:
Lewis does not describe the use of baskets )

Jack
Chen in "The Chinese of
America" pp. 69-70, 1980, expands even further Lewis's embellished
description by including the use of baskets used by Chinese construction crews
at Cape Horn and cites Oscar Lewis, "The Big Four",1938, (above) as his source. There is no evidence that
Chinese laborers were used at this location. Between these two authors the
Chinese basket myth is beginning to expand beyond any accurate historical
description. (see page 23)

(1950)

John
Debo Galloway's book is included as his descriptions have been used by and
cited
as references by later authors. Mr. Galloway, a Civil Engineer, has written
"The First Transcontinental Railroad"as seen through the eyes of a professional engineer and does not get
into the day to day details of everyday construction as later authors have. His
only reference to Cape Horn is a brief description:"One notable feature of his work (Lewis Clement's) was his location of the line
around a steep mountain cliff called Cape Horn, some three miles from Colfax.
Here the road is 1,200 feet above the American River."[15]

Comment:Mr.
Galloway's book is not a popular history but the reader will find that that his
book, published seven years after his death, is one of the most accurate
without any embellishment of the documentation he reports on and to date
reports the most accurate elevation above the American River.

(1954)

Cerinda
W. Evans, in her biographyof
Collis P. Huntington cites Erle Heath's "SouthernPacific Bulletin"of May, 1927, pg. 12 as her source of information: "At a point on
the line called "Cape Horn," the road was cut out of the almost
perpendicular mountain side about fifteen hundred feet above the American River. To enable the Chinese to
drill and blast out a foothold, they were lowered over the cliff in bosun's
chairs supported by ropes to do the preliminary
cutting."
[16]

Comment:Cerinda
Evans misquotes, paraphrases and embellished Erle Heath's May
1927 description in "The Southern PacificBulletin."See
page 15(1927) for Mr. Heath's
actual words. He states "workers" were lowered over the cliff in bosun's chairs" and did
the preliminary cutting suspended 2500 feet above the American River." Evans has misinterpreted and however inadvertent made
up her description of the construction at Cape Horn by changing and adding
to what Southern Pacific's Erle Heath has reported making her entire description
inaccurate.

(1962)

The
author, Wesley S. Griswold, in his Book "A Work of Giants" describes a trip made by Schuyler Colfax andthree journalists, Albert Richardson
among them. (see (1867) above):"Not far beyond Colfax, they
rounded the spectacular point of Cape Horn, a nearly perpendicular promontory
that pitched southward at an angle of 75 degrees toward the slate green North
Fork of the American River,
1,400 feet below the line of the railroad. Here Strobridge had to lower
Chinese from the top of the cliff in wicker baskets to chip out holes for the
initial charges of powder. By
now repeated blasts had blown away enough rock to form a secure ledge for the
track around the face of Cape Horn. The view was both grand and chilling." [17]

Here
is the first mention of "lowering Chinese laborers from the top of the cliff
in wicker baskets." Griswold inserts this
description
into the middle of
citations taken from Albert D. Richardson's book, "Beyond
the Mississippi" which leads his readers to believe he may be
paraphrasing Richardson. Richardson made no such claim. Richardson did travel
from Colfax to the Summit with a party of railroad officials and surveyors but
did not travel by way of Cape Hornand consequently never saw that area as theroute was not passable for travelers. It is most probable
that the party traveled on the well traveled wagon
road to the Summit used by
all travelers, Stage Coaches and freight haulers to the Nevada mines.

Griswold's
description istotally made up
without any foundation, documentation or basis in fact.His report of a 75 degree slope is an
obviousexaggerationapparently an attempt to justify his
claims of lowering a man in a basket.

(1964)

"October
[1865] came, with 5,000 men
and six hundred horse and mule teams delving at the Cape Horn approach" ... "The
winter had been a mild one in California. Of the thirteen miles of grade to
Dutch Flat, about eight of them had been put in before the first of the year. [1866] Methodically hewing and shoveling,
Crocker's coolies had cut their way out around the face of the massive granite
promontory as long as the footing lasted. After that they worked in bosun's
chairs swung out into thin air from the top of the precipice high above. White
miners were brought in to teach them how to sink holes into the sheer rock with
hammers and cast iron hand drills, tamp in the gunpowder and cut fuses. In
spite of the language barrier the Chinese, with their aptitude for precise
imitation, proved ready learners. Swaying on a thin rope's end over dizzy
emptiness did not bother them. Neither did the danger inherent in the use of
gunpowder; their ancestors, after all, had invented the stuff. They soon caught
onto the principle of cutting fuses of varying lengths for each round of
charges, so that all would go off in one hugely cataclysm of sound and
destruction, tumbling tons of rock and earth down the precipitous slopes. ... Yet the Engineers, and Charlie Crocker, found
cause for encouragement. Hard though the work was, slowly as it went, Cape Horn
was proving less difficult than anticipated." [19]

Comment:The
author, James McCague, a former newspaper man, "later holding positions in
sales promotion and publicity began to write fiction prior to 1960; author of
four novels, including two with—not surprisingly—railroad backgrounds" has included
the above description in his book Moguls and Iron Men, The Story of the First Transcontinental Railroad. His descriptions of the Cape Horn construction have
no basis in fact and are embellishments of the story references he has used. He
provides no cited references to his story source for the Cape Horn construction
and his map on page 145misidentifies the location of Cape Horn itself. The winter of 1865-66
was one of the wettest on record, not a mild one as stated by McCague, and is
well documented in testimony taken during the 1887 US Senate Pacific Railroad
Hearings, a basic source for the original statements and documentation of the
building and organization of the Central Pacific Railroad and one that Mr.
McCague made no claim to reviewing. McCague's description of the Cape Horn
construction is made up and totally without any basis in documented fact other
than his last statement that Cape Horn was less difficult than anticipated, a
quote which was taken from the Chief Engineers Reportby Samuel Montague.

(1966)

"In
the spring of 1866—threeyears
after the start of construction—the Central finally came up against its first
major outpost of the High Sierra. This was Cape Horn, a rocky buttress around
the base of which the American River rumbled through its thousand foot deep
canyon.No detours were feasible.
The only route was the half circle traverse across the slabs and angles of
rock. Chinese laborers were lowered in baskets. They chipped and drilled,
scrambled up from the lines while charges of gunpowder roared beneath them;
drilled again. Inch-by-inch they hacked out a ledge wide enough for men to walk
on; wide enough for a wheelbarrow; wide enough at last to receive eight foot
sleepers. As the gang moved forward, the work train came nosing after them, its
grab irons and journal boxes literally hanging over space."[20]

Comment:The
author, Alexander Saxton, candidate for a doctorate at the University of
Calif., Berkeley (1966) published a twelve page essay entitled "The Army of the
Canton in the High Sierra", a story of the Chinese laborers that worked on the
Central Pacific Railroad. His description above of the construction activities
at Cape Horn are cited from second and third generation sources and list
references that do not support the statements that he has made. He further
embellishes the descriptions he uses with no basis in fact. Cape Horn was
constructed in 1865, not 1866. Saxton providesno first hand sources describing the use of baskets and the
American River does not "rumble around the base of Cape Horn." which conjoins
Burnt Flat, approximately 1200 feet above and over a half mile from the
American River. It is not apparent that Saxton has ever seen the Cape Horn site
he describes so poetically. His use of the term "eight foot sleepers" refers to
the wooden ties used to support the rails and is a term commonly used in the
east but rarely used on western railroads. His statement of the work train
nosing after the crew moved forward may be true after the rails were being laid
however this did not occur until several months after the sidehill rock cutting
had long been completed.

(1969)

"In
the fall of 1865 the Chinese laborers of the Central Pacific, derisively called
by some, 'Crocker's pets,' came up against Cape Horn, a nearly perpendicular
rocky promontory. At that point the American River is 1,400 feet below the line
of the road. Chinese workmen were lowered from the top of the cliff in
wicker baskets. The basket men chipped and drilled holes for explosives, and
then scrambled up the lines while the gunpowder exploded beneath. Inch by inch the road bed was gouged from the
granite."[21]

Comment:Editor
Chinn cites W.S. Griswold, A Work of Giants, p.123 as his source. However his description only
paraphrases Griswold and then goes on to add statements taken from other texts
without naming his source. Chinn's writers may have been mislead by Griswold
who has made up this account but have further added to the myth by other made
up claims which cannot be supported. i.e. "scrambled up the lines while the
gunpowder exploded beneath."

(1969)

"Building
the Central Pacific road over and through the granite walls of the Sierra
Nevada was literally by hand. Chinese were lowered in baskets over cliffs
two thousand feet above the base of the American River Canyon to chisel a roadway through the granite reaches
and occasional shale deposits for the iron rails." [22]

Comment:This
statement is attributed to Erle Heath in his Trail
to Rail, Southern Pacific
Bulletin, Chap. XV, p. 12. and taken as an extract and included as part of
a
generic description in a SP Public Relations Department release, dated Jan. 3,
1966.
This descriptionis in conflict
with what Heath has stated in his May 1927 issue of the Southern Pacific
Bulletin.
The
above
description makes no reference as to where or when the use ofworkman being lowered in baskets but
implies it was at Cape Horn. This SP Public Relations Department release is not
a dependable source for research and it is doubtful that it was ever intended
to
be anything more that a popular account for public consumption.

(1976)

"Not
long after the first Chinese arrived from Canton, Strobridge & Crocker came
up against a literal stone wall, a nearly perpendicular cliff, called Cape
Horn, that rose 1400 feet above the American River at an angle of seventy-five
degrees.

A
Chinese interpreter approached Strobridge and said that in the Yangtze valley
it was often necessary to build along the faces of cliffs as steep as these.
Let him bring reeds up from San Francisco to weave baskets. Soon the Chinese
were sitting up late around campfires weaving round, waist-high baskets big
enough to hold a man. It was an immemorial pattern used for the high work in
China. At each of the positions of the four winds, an eyelet was woven into the
basket. Symbols were printed on it to repel the evil spirits.

When
the whistle blew at 6:a.m., the Chinese marched off with the baskets suspended
between two of them, a rope secured to each eyelet. At the top of the precipice
the four ropes were further lashed to a central cable. Then, with two men to
haul each basket, one man got in and was lowered along the cliff face. Swaying
in the wind, he chipped and drilled into the face of the rock and inserted the
powder charge. Quickly, he scrambled up the cable while the charge spluttered
and flashed, erupting at last in a spray of pulverized stone.

At
the end of a long day the Caucasians and Chinese marched away to their separate
quarters and their well earned dinners. But first each Chinese filled his tub
with hot water from a giant boiler that the mess cook had ready. Behind the
tent, he sponged himself and changed clothes, to the astonishment of his white
neighbors,

The
evening rice was made savory with an array of imported delicacies — oysters,
abalone and cuttlefish, mushrooms and bamboo shoots, exotic fruits and
vegetables, seaweed Ð all imported from China, the mysteriously revived with
warm water. Absolutely essential was the tea from which was served to them on
the grade several times a day by a coolie who carried it in powder kegs, filled
from thirty or forty gallon whiskey jugs. Probably the better health and
endurance of the Chinese resulted from their better - balanced diet. The
Caucasian workers ate beef, beans, bread, butter and potatoes eternally. The
water they drank was sometimes unintentionally a cause of illness.

All
summer and fall and on into the winter, the dangling Chinese worked at their
perilous task. It took three hundred men ten days to "Clear and grub a mile of
right of way." Not every cable held, not every Chinese shinnied up the rope in
time. An occasional basket or wide coolie hat would be seen bobbing on the
surface of the American River far below.But no count was kept of Chinese casualties. By winter, the monument to the labor of the living
and the dead was a roadway wide enough for several men to pass abreast, and it
rounded the corner of the promontory."[23]

Comment:The
author, Corinne Hoexter, a popular writer at the time she wrote her book was a
free lance writer at home with children working on historical/biographical
books for teenagers and wrote this book on the subject of Chinese immigration.
Mrs. Hoexter makes it clear in her Acknowledgments that she is a researcher and
writer of the role of minorities and immigrants in American history. She does
not make any claim to being a railroad historian and has relied on previous
railroad historians for her descriptions of the construction at Cape Horn. Her
book is clearly cataloged as "Juvenile Literature" by the Library of Congress

(1979)

"On
a high sheer cliff towering above the gorge of the American River, the roadbed
of the railroad was to climb fourteen hundred feet up the sides of the
precipitous rock face. There were no ledges. There was not even a goat trail.
The blasting crews chipped away at the seventy-five-degree incline for days.
Inch by inch, they advanced less than a foot on some days."

"The
tale is told of how one day a Chinese work foreman came to see Strobridge. He
politely waited, hat in hand, until he could speak. 'Maybe, we can be of some
help.' He supposedly said, 'My people, you know, built the Great Wall of China!
Of stones' "

"The
carving of roads that clung to cliffsides, like birdnests on inaccessible
ledges, was very ancient art to Chinese engineers. Feats of road construction
as this had been commonplace in China for thousands of years. If the ability
of the men from Kwangtung to hang from cliffs at dizzying heights and
to blast a
road out of midair seemed amazing to their Yankee bosses, who 'sneered in
disbelief' at the thought, it was not new to Chinese technology. ... Skeptical
as ever, Strobridge gave his grudging approval, he had nothing to lose.

"

"The
men wove great baskets, large enough to hold several workmen, of tall reeds and
vines. On the waist-high baskets they knotted four eyelets, in the directions
of the Four Winds, and inscribed them with the proper prayers. Ropes were tied
to the eyelets and the baskets, each holding two or three men, were slowly
lowered from the edge of the cliff down to the sight of the marked roadbed
hundreds of feet below. In the swaying wind, the Chinese workman set dynamite
blasts in the rock face and swung away for their lives with all their might.
Many fell below. many died. But in a few weeks the roadbed had been blasted
from the rock. They were
'becoming expert in drilling, blasting and other rock work,' said the railroads
engineer, Sam Montague. The Summit lay ahead." [24]

The
author, Stan Steiner, who writes with scorn upon the use of
bibliographies,goes on to add "In
the empirical halls of academia the writer who is personal and subjective is
considered suspect or, at the very least, unscientific. The writer can escape
this stigma by compiling a bibliography that seems impersonal and wholly
objective. By doing so the writer is saying in effect saying, now don't blame
me
entirely for whatever you may think foolish. I am merely quoting someone else.
... In saying that, may I offer this list of books for what it is worth. Not too
much, I would think." Steiner goes
on to offer thirteen pages in his bibliography and admits he has copied much
of it
from other authors' work. He has paraphrased, added to and embellished the
description as found in "From Canton to California" by Corinne Hoexter, a popular writer, and written
for midyear schoolchildren and offers no citations or credits. Of the many
references he offers in his bibliography, he does not mention Hoexter at all
much less his primary source. At best, this description of the construction of
the roadbed at Cape Horn is no more than a made up story, the foundation of
which istaken from the works of
other authors and totally without any basis in fact.

(1985)

"At
Cape Horn, a promontory overlooking the American River, five miles above Colfax
by rail, the Chinese met their first challenge. Lowered over the cliff in
'bosun's chairs,' the Chinese did the preliminary rock cutting while suspended
2,500 feet above the river."[25]

Comment:The
author, John R. Signor is a professional trainman with the Southern Pacific
railroad and has authored a number of books, richly illustrated with
photographs which he credits to the Southern Pacific Archives and many well
known railroad historians and photographers. Signor had the support of the SP
Management and their Public Relations personneland had access to archives not readily available to others.
His reference to "bosun's chairs" obviously comes from the May
1927 issue
of the Southern Pacific Bulletin. Mr. Signors incredible photograph collection
shows that the Cape Horn slope was nearer to 50 degrees rather than the 75
degrees as reported by others.Two
errors are evident, the actual elevation of the roadbed is 1,332 feet, not "2,500
feet above the river" which is
misleading as the river is nearly a mile away, as measured from the USGS
Map,
Colfax Quadrangle, California, 7.5 minute series. The cliff referred to is a
very steep slope of about 50 degrees, too steep for a man to stand on, but not
a cliff for one to be lowered over.

(1988)

"Charlie
Crocker divided his growing pool of labor five ways. The largest of his work
crews—some five thousand men and six hundred teams of draft animals—were sent
ahead four miles east of
Colfax to work on Cape Horn, an immense spur of granite rising some 3,800 feet
above the American River ... The huge gang sent to Cape Horn, which soon resembled
a giant ant hill swarming with celestials ... Somehow they had to create a roadbed
along the almost sheer sides of the granite monster. In early September,
Strobridge turned his Celestials loose on Cape Horn with their picks, drills,
shovels, tiny wheelbarrows, and blasting powder.The Chinese who either were not susceptible to acrophobia
or
possessed a singular wealth of fatalism—began to sculpt the mountain, great
chunks of which were blasted or pried loose to tumble ... into the American River
farbelow. Hundreds of barrels of
black powder were ignited daily to shear away the obdurate granite and for a
ledge on which a roadbed could be laid ... Montague suggested to Strobridge a
new tactic, to which the Chinese headman agreed. Beginning amidst the chill winds
of late October ... scores of Chinese were lowered by ropes from Cape Horn's
summit
to the almost vertical cliff face. There, nestled in flimsy-looking but strong
woven baskets, the workers, sometimes swaying in the wind like ornaments on
some bizarre outdoor Christmas tree, bored holes in the cold rock with their
small hand drills. Dangling they tamped their explosives that had been lowered
to them, set and lit the fuses, signaled the men above, and ... then scrambled
up the lines while gunpowder exploded beneath. ... Some of the Celestial acrophiles
were not agile enough to escape the blasts or were hit by flying rock and
followed the chunks of granite into the valley below." [26]

Comment:The
description above was written by John Hoyt Williams, a history professor at
Indiana State University. Even though he does cite two sources, (McCague, 1964,
p.110 and Chinn, 1969, p.45 ) Williams takes McCague's quotation completely out
of context and embellishes it with his own made up claims that do not
accurately reflect his cited quotations. Thomas Chinn cites Griswold as his
source and also adds to and embellishes his reference, misrepresentingGriswold's already made up story. None
of the above descriptions have any basis in fact, include copies from
statements in the citations mentioned above which he has altered and is
entirely the authors interpretation of what he perceived happened. This is a
most fanciful tale, poetic license at its worst and full of exaggerations and
made up stories. One claim stands out that reasoned judgment cannot let pass:
first, the Charles Crocker & Company, contractor on the Central Pacific did
not have 5,000 employees in September 1865 much less four more work crews and
secondly the Cape Horn construction site was not large enough to accommodate
5,000 men much less 600 teams of draft animals.Williams describes Cape Horn as having "almost sheer
sides" which is far from an accurate
observation. It is obvious that Prof. Williams never saw Cape Horn and probably
little if any of the Central Pacific Railroad right of way.

(1999)

"If
the 'Mountain Spirit' resented the Engineers, then what would it have thought
of the toilers on the west slope of the Sierra, especially those addressing the
forbidding, obstructive cliff face above Colfax? Named Cape Horn ... this sheer
mountainside towered over the American River, two thousand feet below. ... With an incline of seventy five degrees, not even
the sure footed surveyors had broached it; they had merely sighted on the far
end and drawn a steadily climbing, wholly theoretical line across the cliff. The
Cantonese were to take care of it, producing a seven-foot wide shelf from which
a wider platform could be scraped and blasted—and they were aided by picks and
shovels, hand drills, wheelbarrows, and one horse dump carts, and the
unlikeliest of materials, the humble, bendable reed."

"Daily
progress was measured in inches, kegs of black powder consumed by the hundreds,
asslowly a narrow shelf
lengthened alongside the yawning gulf and its roiling green river far beneath
the laborers. A month passed. Cape Horn resisted. The ingenious breakthrough
has been attributed to Samuel Montague, who was certainly resourceful, but it
is far more likely that inspiration came from the Chinese themselves. Back at home, longer than anyone could
remember, in places like the deep canyons of the Yangtze workers had been
lowered down the cliff by a rope in large woven baskets, which enabled them
to
work in more efficient lines across the heights. If Strobridge were to send
down to San Francisco for reeds, the Cantonese would weave such baskets and
submit themselves to this new, highly dangerous work. It was a safe bet for
Strobridge—what could he lose but a few Celestials?—so he agreed.
With
materials in hand, the Chineseworked through the evenings fashioning waist high baskets, with four woven
grommets to hold the rope, and decorated with symbols to ward off both mishaps
and evil spirits. Two men were required to lower a swaying basket down the
cliff, its occupant sometimes losing his hat to the gusts of wind, until the
man reached his appointed place and began hammering and drilling at the granite
face. Then there was the cautious tamping of powder into the hole, the difficulty of striking a match to
the fuse in the wind, the wild shout of success, and the worker scrambling out
of his basket, up the ropes, the alerted men above hauling him up as fast as
they could, the dull crash of the explosion just below him, the spraying of
granite dust and rock fragments arcing out over the gulf and down to the
distant American River, containing—this time but not always—no unfortunate
immigrant whose unrecoverable bones would never be returned to the homeland." [27]

Comment:The
author, David Haward Bain citesCorinne Hoexter's(From
Canton to California) (1976), a book
written for mid year schoolchildren, and uses her description as his primary
source. Also cited is Thomas W. Chinn (ed), A History of the Chinese in
California: a Syllabus (1969) whose
only contribution is a claim that "the basket men ... scrambled up the lines
while gunpowder exploded beneath." Bain
paraphrases Hoexter's already glowing description and adds to and embellishes
it further until the story no longer represents, even remotely, the events that
were represented to have actually taken place. The basis of this entire account
is constructed from second and third generation sources.

(2000)

"Strobridge
divided his work crews into five parts. The largest, some five thousand men and
six hundred teams of horses, were sent ahead of Illinoistown (Colfax) to work on Cape Horn. ... One of the
most feared stretches ran three miles along the precipitous gorge of the North
Fork
of the American River, nicknamed 'Cape Horn.'The Slope was at an angle of seventy five degrees, and the
river was twelve hundred to twenty two hundred feet below the line of the
railroad. There were no trails, not even a goat path. The grade would not be
bored through a tunnel, but rather built on the side of a mountain, which would
require blasting and rock cuts on the sheer cliffs. The mountain needed to be
sculpted, because the roadbed would be curved around the mountain. The curves
that hugged the monolith were either up grade, or sometimes down. Men had to
be
lowered in a bosun's chair from above to place the black powder, fix and light
the fuses, and yell to a man above to haul them up. ... One day in the summer
of 1865, a Chinese foreman went to Strobridge, nodded, waited for permission
to
speak. When it was granted, he said that the men of China were skilled in work
like this. Their ancestors had built fortresses in the Yangtze gorges. Would
he
permit Chinese crews to work on Cape Horn? If so, could reeds be sent up from
San Francisco to weave the baskets?"

"Strobridge
would try anything. The reeds came on. At night the Chinese wove baskets
similar to the ones their ancestors used. The baskets were round, waist high,
four eyelets at top, painted with symbols. Ropes ran from the eyelets to a
central cable. The Chinese went to work—they needed little or no instruction
in handling black powder, which was a Chinese invention—with a hauling
crew at the
precipice top."

"Hundreds
of barrels of black powder were ignited daily to form a ledge on which the
roadbed could be laid. Some of the men were lost in accidents, but we don't know
how many: The CP did not keep a record of Chinese casualties. ... The Chinese
workingmen, hanging in their baskets, had to bore the holes with their small
hand drills, then tamp in the explosives, set and light the fuse, and holler
to be pulled out of the way. They used a huge amount of powder that was shipped
to
them from Sacramento." [28]

Comment:
This description is written by Stephen E. Ambrose, Professor
of
History, University of New Orleans, Louisiana,and is taken from his book, "Nothing
Like It In The World, The Men Who
Built The Transcontinental Railroad 1863-1869. Ambrose has taken his
description of the Cape Horn event from other modern writers, among them John
Hoyt Williams' "Great and Shining Road." The one citation he does make, (25) " Great and Shining Road," p.142, does not exist at that location and would
not have described the events at Cape Horn in any event. He provides no
credits or citations for his claims and has paraphrased John Hoyt Williams,
Professor of History, University of Indiana (1988) and Corinne Hoexter, a
popular writer of a mid year children's book, From Canton to California(1976). Ambrose
goes on to add to and embellish the description of the events that occurred.
He
contributes no original source documentation and does not appear to have done
any research into the Cape Horn event. Ambrose'sdescription is the latest example of a totally made up story
that he has contributed his own embellished version to what other writers have
described.

How steep was Cape Horn
originally ? - as compared with today ?

There
are no known photographs ofhow
Cape Horn appeared before the original construction of the railroad nor are
there any known contemporary first hand descriptions. All the existing
photographs from the late 1860's up to the widening in 1929 easily lead to
assumptions made that there was a reasonably uniform face to the bluff and the
face did not exceed more than about 50 degrees. That can still be measured and
concluded today as evidenced by the USGS topographical maps,the aerial photograph and others
included in this publication.

Since
the first draft of this paper being made available to other historians, an
original Central Pacific Railroad survey profile of Cape Horn has been
discovered.Correspondence between
the author and Mr. Lynn Farrar, Valuation Engineer, Southern Pacific
Transportation Co., retired,who
has analyzed the Right of Way and Profile maps had this to say. "A review
of
Exhibit E [Profile Map of Cape Horn] shows
that the face of Cape Horn was not a continuously smooth one[but]with a number of gullies creasing the surface. The profile shows
only what the original ground looked like at the centerline of track when built
1865/1866. There is no way, absent the original engineer's field notes, to tell
what thegrading cross sections
were. It is obvious these notes were available to the person or persons who
made up this profile, there being no other way to do it."

In
reviewing of the original profile it appears that at track centerline there
were at leastthree fills [at the
gullies] estimated as ranging in depth from 7 to about 48 feet, several
locations that the track elevation met a natural grade and approximatelyfive separate locations with cuts
varying from a very irregular 31 to 70 feet, 8 feet to 4 feet, 48 feet to 57
feet and one from approximately 7 feet to 31 feet in depth with the total length
of the
face
of
Cape
Horn estimated
to be approximately 1,500 feet. From this profile map and available photographs
Mr. Farrar has hypothesized what the original slope at track center line could
have been assuming various angles of that slope and makes it very clear that
any assumptions on slopes and distances are just that, assumptions, as there
are no original survey records available. It does seem prudent in expressing
degree of slope at Cape Horn to say that the original slope appears to vary
from 45 to 70 degrees, at least at track center line. As viewed on the profile
map it appears that the five major cut areas ranged in width from 100 to 200
feet with the largestcut at the
east end of curve #150 of approximately 400 feet.

Excavated
material pushed or thrown over a steep slope will come to an angle of repose of
about 45 degrees. The many thousands of cubic yards excavated in 1865, the many
yards cleared of slough offs 1865-1913 and the widening in 1929 restoring the
track to the original roadbed, all or most of was disposed over the edge, still
retain the natural slope of about 45 degrees.The cuts above the roadbed today that appear to be almost
vertical actually do not exceed aprox. 70 degrees at the greatest incline at
curve #149 and 50 degrees or less in general. From this writers observations
the irregular face of Cape Horn that the original builders faced are long gone
and today Cape Horn's appearance no longer shows the rocky outcroppings and
gullies the men of the Central Pacific blasted their way through to build the
roadbed to Promontory.

FINIS

It
is this writers opinion that the legend of Cape Horn began to develop about
sixty years after the event took place, probably during the late 1920's after
the May 1927 issue
of the Southern Pacific Bulletindescribed
"Chinese workman lowered over a cliff in Bosun's Chairs, supported by ropes
to do the preliminary cutting" [see
above] which was the first time such a description was used. Each succeeding
author who wrote about the building of the Central Pacific Railroad began to
build on the story, adding his own interpretation and embellishing the story
until it not only did not represent any realistic truth about how the roadbed
was constructed around Cape Horn but did not accurately describe the geography
itself. Not one authorof any of
the twenty three publications referred to above cites any contemporary sources,
documented facts or references to the Cape Horn construction that accurately
bear out the story being told. Each succeeding author refers to a previous
author as his documented source, or none at all, and when that source was
checked the truth of what really happened has disappeared into the imagination
of literary license.

The
construction of the roadbed around Cape Horn, difficult as it may have been,
was a non-event. There are no contemporary references in any of the newspapers
either local or national nor any found in the Southern Pacific's archives other
than the one comment by Chief Engineer Samuel Montague who states in his report
of November 1865 that "the work at Cape Horn was less difficult and
expensive than first anticipated". The
personal letters of Judge E.B. Crocker to Collis P. Huntington and by engineer
Robert L. Harris describing how side hill rock cutting was accomplished [see
above] and the descriptions
given in
some of the early tourist
guides of men supported with ropes tied around their bodies while picking
away to make a foothold are the most logical methods used. The rocky prominence
was
not sheer or perpendicular but had a very irregular 45 to 70 degree slope as
evidenced in the contemporary photographs and the CPRR profile map. Certainly
too steep
for a man to safely stand on without support from above but far from the sheer
precipice that men in baskets could be lowered over. The description of the "Chinese
Basket Drillers" are romantic but not true. Edwin L.
Sabin [see above] describes the laborers as being both "yellow
and white." It
was not until 1927 when Erle Heath of the Southern Pacific's Public Relations
Departmentmentions the Chinese and then exaggerates by "lowering them over a
cliff". The Chinese became the
dominant working force on the Central Pacific railroad however the first
Chinese were not hired until March 1865, approximatelyfour months before the Cape Horn
construction was under way. There is no evidence that they were trained in the
use of rock blasting until much later when they reached the summit tunnels and
the side hill blasting on the eastern slope of the Sierra's. The Southern
Pacific's Public Relations Department did their part in furthering the legend
by sponsoring the legendary painting of the Chinese Basket Drillers and
going so far as having the scene painted on the wall of Union Station in Ogden,
Utah (since removed)

.

Cape
Horn was a tourist attraction then as it is now and as spectacular a view as
it
is the more spectacular views at the Summit of the Sierras were not exploited
as they could not be seen by rail travelers due to the track being covered by
snowsheds for over forty miles. The legend was born out of the railroad's Public
Relations Department efforts to stimulate interest in the scenic wonders of the
West and promote rail travel,later to be embellished by writers and historians who failed to do the
basic research. Unfortunately, in the minds of many the legend has become an
accepted part of our nation's history and historians have done little to correct
the myth.

All
the opinions are mine, arrived at by several months of research and trying to
track down the references used by published authors who have provided citations
for their documented sources that seldom proved to have any basis in fact.
Sources such as the local newspapers of the period from July 1865 through June
1866 were all reviewed and there was not one story or reference relating to the
construction at Cape Horn and precious little at Long Ravine above Colfax.
Teamsters and travelers over the Sierras used the existing roads which were
milesshorter and several miles
distant which bypassed the Central Pacific's Cape Horn loop entirely.
Consequently very few ever saw the activities during construction unless they
were a part of it.

My
interest in publishing this paper lies only in the telling of the truth of
history and encouraging others to expose the false reporting of historical
events used by those who fail to ferret out the truth.

Edson T. Strobridge is currently writing the biography
of James Harvey Strobridge who was the Superintendent of Construction on
the Central Pacific Railroad as well as most of the of the mainlines of
the Southern Pacific Railroad from 1863-1890. His research has uncovered
the truth about many of the events that earlier historians have either
badly distorted, simply copied from other authors without verifying the
truth or in fact just made up their stories of what really happened while
these historical events were taking place.

Many
of the stories written in the past about events that occurred during the
years James Harvey Strobridge was
actively involved with these two great railroads have been written since
about 1920. Several of these legends have been adopted by,
added to and embellished by historians who have failed to do the necessary
research to accurately report these events as they actually happened. Consequently,
in the railroad histories written since about 1938, there now exists many
romanticized stories that are nothing more than the figment of collective
imagination of the authors
who promote their work as a true interpretations of the events they record.Nothing could be further from the truth.

Mr.
Strobridge's intention in this paper is to demonstrate what legends are
made of and how the Cape Horn legend came to be. As history is a record
of past events then historians who write about such events must be responsible
and accountable for telling the truth when the truth is available. Stephen
E. Ambrose said it best when he said: "Nothing is relative. What happened,
happened. What didn't happen, didn't and to assert it is to lie.*"